The Order of the Universe
St. Thomas Aquinas used this idea to argue for the existence of God; he believed that because there order in the universe, it could not come from chance. I believe religious people should see the order of our universe not simply as an argument for a creator of God. It is an argument for an orderly god. For example: believing we serve an orderly God, we can use critical thinking to test the age of the universe by comparing the ratio of the distance of stars with the speed of light. But if, as some people do, we insist on interpreting the Bible’s account of the creation of the universe as having occurred in 7 consecutive 24 hour days, then we must come to the conclusion that we serve a capricious God, not an orderly one. Because he created an aged universe that looks like it was millions of years old, when in fact it is only roughly 10,000 years old.

Gospels

The books in the Bible that tell the story of Jesus are called gospels.
– The titles of these books come from the names of the authors that Christian tradition attributed to them, though the authors wrote anonymously.
– We believe that these books originated from collections of sayings and stories that had been transmitted orally. Three of them, Matthew, Mark and Luke are called synoptic gospels because they are collections of stories and sayings that appear to have relied on common sources. Of the three, Mark is the earliest, believed to have been written about 60-70AD.
– Where stories and sayings overlap in Matthew and Luke that have parallels to Mark, it is understood that those gospels used Mark as a source. But Matthew and Luke also overlap in ways that are independent from Mark. Modern scholars believe that these sayings existed in a written collection that we don’t have. They call this collection “Q,” short for “source” in German.
– In contrast, John, the fourth gospel, is almost 100% independent of these sources, and also separated by the greatest time from Jesus’ life; believed by some to have been written at least 60 years later in 90AD.
– Because they rely on oral sources that were the closest to the life of Jesus and the early years of the Jesus movement, the synoptic gospels reflect the earliest records of Jesus’ life.
– The earliest gospels are the best sources we have to know what were the most important (and not) to the earliest Christians. What was worth including. What wasn’t (or may not have even been talked about at that time.) They are the least likely to have been impacted by the theologizing of later generations of the church. This doesn’t mean the other gospels do not contain authentic sayings of Jesus. Just that the farther we get from events, historical reliability diminishes.

The scholastic approach to the study of the Bible is called Biblical criticism. The term “criticism” should not be mistaken for criticizing. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language defines literary criticism as: “The practice of analyzing, classifying, interpreting, or evaluating literary or other artistic works.” Biblical criticism, then, studies biblical writings as historical and literary documents rather than as divinely inspired revelations of God. The goal is to make discerning judgments about who wrote them, the times they lived in, and the sources they used in the composition of their writings.

The critical approach to biblical study began when the same tools of investigation applied to the natural sciences were applied to the study of the humanities. A major shift occurred with the development of Renaissance humanism in the fifteenth century, when the humanities began to be regarded as subjects to study, rather than simply read. This included history, literature, and ancient and modern languages.

Scholars attempted to apply scientific inquiry to these fields. Whereas the natural sciences rely on empirical methods, the humanities could only use critical tools. Information about the past had to be systematically collected. The languages of the texts had to be studied.

These new critical approaches to the ancient texts attempted to reconstruct the times in which they were written. The point was to understand ”the world behind the text.”

Biblical criticism arose as these historical critical methods were applied to the Bible. It approached the Bible in the same manner as any other ancient text: as historical and natural documents, rather than divinely inspired revelations of God. By studying them as historical and literary documents it was hoped to gain a better understanding of 1st Century Christianity. To get as close as possible to the 1st century world out of which these the books and their authors lived.

The three most significant fields of study are textual, historical, and source criticism.

Textual criticism

As more manuscripts were discovered, and infrared and ultraviolet examination of papyrus, archaeological research, it became apparent that errors had crept into the texts as generations of scribes reproduced each other’s manuscripts. have revealed other flaws the Bible has suffered as it has been transmitted to us from the early centuries of the church ’till today. In most instances, this was little more than the addition, misspelling, or dropping of a word. Scribes may have had trouble seeing the document they were copying, and copied a word incorrectly, or dropped one altogether. Sometimes a scribe reached the end of a line, and accidentally skipped the next one, leaving out an entire sentence.

Other changes were intentional, though not malicious. Some scribes fancied themselves as editors. They corrected events that were historically inaccurate and made sure places were named accurately. They also corrected spelling and grammar as they saw fit.

In some extreme cases scribes made overt attempts to change the text for doctrinal purposes which impacted the meaning of the verses involved for generations after them. The discovery of the earliest manuscripts of Mark’s gospel revealed the last verses of chapter 16 were later additions, possibly added by scribes who were unhappy with the abrupt ending at verse 8 describing the women fleeing from the empty tomb, and saying “nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.” A scribe seems to have added commentary to 1John 5:7-8 to make the doctrine of the trinity more explicit. And John 7.53–8.11 is missing from the oldest manuscripts, omitting the story of the adulterous woman, whom Jesus instructed to “go and sin no more.” A story Daniel Wallace, Professor of NT Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, calls “My favorite passage that’s not in the Bible.”

And somewhere along the way, an additional ending was added to Mark’s gospel, probably for the purpose of completing what originally seemed an unsatisfactory ending.

Textual criticism developed as a method to trace the history of these errors as they had been introduced into the Bible and attempt to determine the original writing. By meticulous comparison of the manuscripts, researchers could determine words, sentences, and stories that were either redacted or added to what eventually became the official canon.

Textual criticism is also known as lower criticism.

Historical criticism

Historical criticism focuses on finding the place of each book in its original historical context. The historical critic tries to determine who wrote the book, when it was written, and where. This is done by comparing biblical texts with ancient history, contemporary books, and current findings in archaeological studies.

For example, we know the second temple at Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD. Because this was such a cataclysmic event, we can approximate the dates some books were written by whether the book shows evidence the author knew about its destruction. Mark’s gospel and the early letters of Paul do not show evidence of experiencing the destruction, while Matthew and Luke’s gospel do. This, along with other evidence, allows us to date Mark’s gospel at around 65-70AD and Paul’s letters to around 50AD. Matthew and Luke’s gospels were likely written around 80-90AD

The historical critic also tries to flesh out the original meaning of texts in their historical context. To ascertain the text’s primitive or original meaning in its original context. We have learned much more about the Bible and its times as we have discovered more and more documents from the 1st-3rd century, especially those of a similar genre. The gospel of Thomas discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945 helps us understand the gospel genre. And the study of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature gives insight to the language and context of the book of Revelation.

Historical criticism is also known as higher criticism.

Source criticism

The final type of scholastic study is Source criticism which tries to determine the original sources of a biblical book.

The similarities between Matthew, Mark and Luke’s gospels are well known. In the fifth century, St. Augustine claimed the gospels were written chronologically, by order of their listing in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark and Luke, with each author thoughtfully elaborating, or supplementing the work of his predecessors.

This view prevailed until the late eighteenth century, when Johann Jakob Griesbach published a synopsis of the Bible, laying the gospel stories side by side. It was noticed that Matthew and Luke relied heavily on Mark, as opposed to Augustine’s belief that Matthew was the earliest source.

By comparing these gospels with each other, scholars noticed that both Matthew and Luke had access to Mark’s gospel, and used it as a source in their writing. They also contributed their own material: stories and sayings not found in the other gospels. But scholars also found a substantial amount of stories and sayings that Matthew and Luke shared in common, but didn’t get from Mark. Scholars have hypothesized a source document existed which they call the “Q” gospel that both Matthew and Luke drew upon, but was foreign to Mark.

The Christian Bible is made up of two volumes, The New Testament and Old Testament.

The New Testament, considered the first volume of the Christian Bible, though it follows chronologically the Old Testament, is the collection of 1st century books and letters collected about Jesus and the early church.

It is made up of:

Four gospels which outline the life, and teachings of Jesus the Messiah,

The Acts of the Apostles, a history of the 1st century church,

Twenty-one letters, known as epistles, of the 1st century leaders,

Revelation, a 1st century Apocalypse.

The New Testament was not written by a single author at a specific time. Consequently, it is a tapestry of leaders, writers and editors spanning the millenia.

Christianity before the Bible

These books are believed to have been written in the 1st century, no later than 150AD. In its infancy, Christianity existed without authoritative texts. The books that arose from that movement and eventually came to be our Bible did not themselves claim to be revelation. Jesus didn’t write anything down. He didn’t dictate his sayings to an author. Following his death and resurrection, sayings of Jesus were passed around. These included sayings, sermons, and stories about his life, death and resurrection. Spirit-filled believers and teachers traveled from place to place sharing the gospel.

Writing of gospels and letters

Eventually, authors collected these traditions into the four books we know today as gospels. These gospels contain a tapestry of sayings, parables, and narrative from a variety of sources.
Each author seems to have had a variety of sources at their disposal. Some of these sources overlapped with the other authors, while others were unique. This made each gospel unique in ways that emphasized and de-emphasized aspects of Jesus teaching and tailored the messages to the specific needs of their audience.

Christianity also spread through the exchange of letters attributed to Jesus’ apostles, most notably Paul. These letters were addressed to specific city churches throughout the Roman empire. But they were also circulated amongst other churches.

Other books written at the time of the early church

In the 20th century, we became aware of many other gospels and letters circulating at the time that didn’t make the final cut of our Bible. We have found books attributed to the apostles Thomas, Judas, and Peter, as well as Jesus’ mother Mary. For a variety reasons, these documents are not considered authentic. But they give us a window into the diversity of the early church.

Diversity of first century Christianity

This variety of letters and gospels helps us to see that first century Christianity was a very diverse movement. The books of our Bible are representative of a movement that was being shaped and formed over time, from a variety of influences. Scholars call this time “proto-orthodox” because it is a time when orthodoxy was being worked out. This is a different perspective on early christianity that contradicts the common view that the bible represents a unified message originating from the apostles.

Collecting the gospels and letters into the canon

In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, different Christian groups began to identify specific gospels and letters as legitimate and held them as collections. The process of collecting these books was motivated by the necessity to nail down the authoritative voice of Christianity. Some groups told fanciful tales about Jesus to lend credence to their philosophy. The early church fathers identified these groups “gnostics,” but we now know that gnosticism, like early Christianity, was not a unified movement either. There were many different groups with different beliefs and ideas.

As the church developed towards orthodoxy, her leaders tried to determine which of these writings to include in the canon, by ascertaining which they believed came from the authentic oral tradition of Jesus’ sayings, and which were legitimate letters of the apostles.

Their criteria: (From Steve)

1. Authorship – [A legitimate claim needed to be made that a book had been] written by an apostle or a close associate of an apostle. For example, [though] Mark was not an apostle, [he was believed to have been] a close associate of the Apostle Peter. The Apostle Paul fit this criteria even though he was not one of the original 12 disciples, because he saw Jesus in a vision.

2. Nature of the Book – Did the message of the book agree with the content of divine revelation in the Old Testament? Did the book reflect the character of the person and work of Jesus Christ and agree with the existing apostolic writing?

3. Universality – Was the book being read and practiced in the churches throughout the Body of Christ? This criterion addresses the degree to which the people of God recognize and accept the authority of the book under consideration.

The writings of the early church fathers and historians identified many different lists of what different Christians believed should be included in the Christian Bible. But by the 4th century, there was near unanimous agreement about which gospels and letters should be included in the Bible we have today. In a letter from 367 AD Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria listed the 27 books that we now consider the New Testament canon, using the word “canonized.”

Identifying the books of the Bible as holy scripture

As these books made their journey from their original author to their inclusion in the canon, a change occurred in how to understand them. These books became more than mere books. Leaders claimed these authors were inspired by God and that their words were His revelations. The label of divine scripture was assigned to them in an effort to discriminate orthodoxy from heresy, though none of the texts themselves claimed to be oracles. The church adopted the word “scripture” to describe them, and elevated these books to the same level the Jews held the Old Testament.

Acknowledging Christianity’s Jewish origins, the early church also adopted the Septuagint, the latin translation of the Hebrew Bible. The early church believed that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Hebrew Bible’s prophecies of a Messiah. The Hebrew Bible eventually came to be known to Christians as the Old Testament in contrast to the Christian Bible’s New Testament.

This canon of books, and ideas about its authority carried the church through the medieval/ middle ages/ dark ages, from the 4th through the 16th centuries. The authority of Popes, and bishops was established on the nature of these books as divine revelation. This also granted them divine authority as the Bible’s sole interpreters. And to question their opinions, was to question God.

A strong case can be made that these beliefs about the canon held Christianity together for 1500 years. But it also paved the way for problems that occurred… and whose ramifications are still being felt today.

“Unless there is this theology that allows the total and complete presence of Jesus christ himself to be immediate, and directly present in every life situation and in every Christian’s life in that situation, unless he is immediately present with us and in us now, I’m sorry, none of this makes any sense.

Unless there is a contemporary reality to the immediacy of the presence of Christ and unless in that immediate presence he is capable of being everything he has ever been. And he can be that right now to you where you are and to the people you are with. Unless that’s true, all we are doing is worshipping history. And christianity as a historical story doesn’t interest me. That doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s important. It means I would not dedicate my life to history.” – Jerry Cook. From his message: “The Radical Relocation of God.”

These are three examples of apparent contradictions in scripture taken from Hans Denck’s “Paradoxa,” 1526. [1. This is a footnote]

The seventh
a) I am not come to judge the world but to save the world [John 12:47]
b). For judgement I came into the world [John 9:39]

The eighth
a). If I testify on my own behalf that testimony is not true [John 5:31]
b). If I testify in my own behalf that testimony is true [John 8:14]

The eleventh
a). For who can resist his will? [Romans 9:19]
b). You have always resisted the Holy Spirit. [Acts 7:51]

Following is a translation of the work. I was very taken with this document when I attended the Associated Mennonite Seminary in the 90′s taking the class “Intro to Anabaptist History and Theology.” On the surface, it could be interpreted as a treatise on relativism, but more importantly, it is testament to the importance of diligence in reconciling contradictions rather then looking them over and relying on the Holy Spirit in interpretation.The following explanation is given in my copy, though I don’t know the source to be able to annotate it properly.”It is an attempt of the Reformer to demonstrate the higher spiritual unity which must be discovered if one is to understand Scripture aright and find in it the genuine path on which to walk…It provides an interesting key to Denck’s Scripture principle. Quotations taken out of their context without any explanation whatever suggest a rather superficial treatment of Scripture. Many of the “opposites” prove not to be such, it the excerpted passages are seen in their own context. Obviously a text without commentary may readily be taken in evidence for one view or another.The scripture passages cited by Denck have been rendered into English in a form as close to the German original as possible, in order to preserve the vivid and forceful juxtaposition of antithetical pairs he intended.” Note that some of the scriptures given are from the books known to Protestants today as the Apocrypha. I have kept them here because they are representative of the scriptures considered authoritative by the Anabaptists. For more on the Anabaptists use of the Apocrypha, there is an article you can read at the Mennonite Church USA archives website.(more…)

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The Long Now Foundation hosted noted Bible scholar Elaine Pagels at their monthly “Seminars about Long term thinking.” She spoke on The Book of Revelations, the last book of the Christian Bible. Click below to listen. Following is a more in-depth introduction. While you may disagree with her views on the Book of Revelation, I think you will find Pagel’s presentation interesting and thought-provoking.

“The Book of Revelation is war literature,” Pagels explained. John of Patmos was a war refugee, writing sixty years after the death of Jesus and twenty years after 60,000 Roman troops crushed the Jewish rebellion in Judea and destroyed Jerusalem.

In the nightmarish visions of John’s prophecy, Rome is Babylon, the embodiment of monstrous power and decadence. That power was expressed by Rome as religious. John would have seen in nearby Ephesus massive propaganda sculptures depicting the contemporary emperors as gods slaughtering female slaves identified as Rome’s subject nations. And so in the prophecy the ascending violence reaches a crescendo of war in heaven. Finally, summarized Pagels, “Jesus judges the whole world; and all who have worshipped other gods, committed murder, magic, or illicit sexual acts are thrown down to be tormented forever in a lake of fire, while God’s faithful are invited to enter a new city of Jerusalem that descends from heaven, where Christ and his people reign in triumph for 1000 years.”

Just one among the dozens of revelations of the time (Ezra’s, Zostrianos’, Peter’s, a different John’s), the vision of John of Patmos became popular among the oppressed of Rome. Three centuries later, in 367CE, Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria confirmed it as the concluding book in the Christian canon that became the New Testament.

As a tale of conflict where one side is wholly righteous and the other wholly evil, the Book of Revelation keeps being evoked century after century. Martin Luther declared the Pope to be the Whore of Babylon. Both sides of the American Civil War declared the opposing cause to be Bestial, though the North had the better music—“He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword.” African-American slaves echoed John’s lament: “How long before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?”

But like many Christians through the years, Pagels wishes that John’s divisive vision had not become part of the Biblical canon. Among the better choices from that time, she quoted from the so-called “Secret Revelation of John”: “Jesus says to John, ‘The souls of everyone will live in the pure light, because if you did not have God’s spirit, you could not even stand up.’

“The other revelations are universal, instead of being about the saved versus the damned.”

I recently was reading about how in the story of Adam and Eve, when they sinned, they hid from God. Following that I was listening to a concert by Hillsongs, a church in Australia. In the middle of it, one of the music pastors shared this passage from the Psalms. In it, we hear described the reasons that we might hide from God. Guilt for our sins. Afraid we won’t be loved by God. Fear of his anger and punishment. I was going to share it when I led singing this Sunday, accompanied by this song, but due to technical reasons, I didn’t. But I still wanted to share it, so I decided to post both here.’

With all my heartI praise the Lord,and with all that I amI praise his holy name!2 With all my heartI praise the Lord!I will never forgethow kind he has been.

3 The Lord forgives our sins,heals us when we are sick,4 and protects us from death.His kindness and loveare a crown on our heads.5 Each day that we live,[a]he provides for our needsand gives us the strengthof a young eagle.

6 For all who are mistreated,the Lord brings justice.7 He taught his Law to Mosesand showed all Israelwhat he could do.

8 The Lord is merciful!He is kind and patient,and his love never fails.9 The Lord won’t always be angryand point out our sins;10 he doesn’t punish usas our sins deserve.

11 How great is God’s love for allwho worship him?Greater than the distancebetween heaven and earth!12 How far has the Lord takenour sins from us?Farther than the distancefrom east to west!

13 Just as parents are kindto their children,the Lord is kindto all who worship him,14 because he knowswe are made of dust.15 We humans are like grassor wild flowersthat quickly bloom.16 But a scorching wind blows,and they quickly witherto be forever forgotten.

17 The Lord is always kindto those who worship him,and he keeps his promisesto their descendants18 who faithfully obey him.

19 God has set up his kingdomin heaven,and he rulesthe whole creation.20 All of you mighty angels,who obey God’s commands,come and praise your Lord!21 All of you thousandswho serve and obey God,come and praise your Lord!22 All of God’s creationand all that he rules,come and praise your Lord!With all my heartI praise the Lord!

“Some years ago, NASA released the first deep-space photographs of the beautiful cloud-swirled blue-green agate we call Earth. A reporter showed one of them to the late Samuel Shenton, then president of International Flat Earth Research Society. Shenton studied it for a moment and said, “It’s easy to see how such a picture could fool the untrained eye.”

Samuel Shenton, and his fellow members of the Flat Earth Society are a rather radical example of a problem we all have. Like them, our vision of our world is colored by what our eyes have been trained to see. When he looked at a picture of what was plainly a globe, he didn’t see the globe. He had trained his eyes to see the Earth as flat and thus wasn’t able to adjust his vision to a different reality.

My eyes were trained by two beliefs: deep trust in science and faith. The result has been that I don’t see things through one lens or the other. I tend to see through both. I will agree with some scientists regarding the origin of our species, while disagreeing with some people of faith on a literal six day creation of the Earth. But then I will disagree with some scientists about intelligent design and agree with the person of faith that God came before and created our universe.

But even still, my eyes are trained. I’ve dedicated a large part of my life to untrain them where necessary, by learning as much as I can, and not letting my biases get in the way of new ideas.

One purpose of this blog is to talk about that process of untraining my eyes.

Paul, one of the first teachers of the way of Jesus wrote this in a letter to a church in ancient Corinth. He said:

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part…”

NKJV 1Corinthians 13:9-12, 13

Paul was telling this fledgling church something that I always need to be reminded of: that my knowledge, whether about historic, scientific, political or spiritual matters, is limited. I only know parts of things. And sometimes those parts are pretty small. My vision is dim. I need the humility to listen to Stephen Hawking about the origin of the universe, and scholars like Robert Webber about the translation of the Greek New Testament of the Bible.

When we learn humility, it should lead us to being gracious to people who see things differently.

Unfortunately this is not always the case. A problem I’ve experienced is that when our eyes are trained on one view or another, we begin to suspect those whose eyes are trained differently. It’s one thing to see the Earth as flat. It’s another to question the spiritual integrity of someone who sees it as a globe. I once saw a video claiming that the earth was only 10,000 years old. While this is tomfoolery to me, I don’t feel the need to damn these people to hell. But the film took the time to brand a dissenting Christian scientist a heretic.

When creeds, hypothesis, doctrines, theories or moral laws come before graciousness, they inevitably lead to judgment. But when graciousness comes before knowledge, it informs that knowledge in a loving way.

So, the other purpose of this blog is to defend people’s integrity as Christians and thinkers, regardless of the training of their eyes, and not allow people to take the moral high ground against them. Because the whole point, Paul taught a sentence later is that while we know in part, what we do know is faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love. Not knowledge.